Broadway, Are you ready for this?

The Star Performers take the stage at the Emmett Cherry Festival
Britt takes to the stage and sings her little heart out!

Solo time...and she Brings down the house! She didn't hold back at all when she got in front of a real audience!

Look at that hip action as she "Washes that man right out of my hair!"

After Britt performed at her 1st grade program and then again in front of her entire school at the end of the year talent show we realized we had a little performer on our hands! I heard about this singing group that does a few performances in the summer and decided to let Britt try it out. She has had a BLAST! So far they have been in a parade and then their first stage performance last Saturday at the Cherry Festival in Emmett. It is SO fun to watch her perform! She really goes all out when she is on stage. I don't know where she gets it! They have 2 songs they perform and it took me a full week before I could get it out of my head!--Oh man, now talking about it has brought it all back!! "I love you, a Bushel and a Peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck!...."You bet your 'purdy' neck I DO! Doo-da-loo-da-loo-do-do!! The other day the kids across the street started a lemonade stand. The next thing I see is Britt making a sign of her own. So I'm thinking it's only a matter of minutes before she is asking me to help her make Kool-Aid to start up her own lemonade stand. But she surprised me. In stead she had a sign that read in 1st grade handwriting" "Brittanie will purform "Bushul and a Peck" for $1.00 each show.

Now that cracks me up! So what do you do when you don't have a good agent? You do it yourself because good help is hard to find!

Look out Kindergarten!

If only we knew how nervous Nate really was standing up in front of everyone!
Handsome little graduate!

Nathan gradutated from Preschool earlier this month. We know how shy our little Nathan is and wondered how he would do in this program. A few weeks earlier he wouldn't go on the stage at church and sing for Mother's Day with all the other kids. I wasn't surprised when the daycare owner told me the next day how scared Nathan was as they were lining up to begin. He went to the bathroom and was in there a long time. It was long enough that a teacher went to check on him and found him in the corner of the bathroom nearly in tears. Luckily we have the BEST teachers at his school and one of them took him by the hand and told him that she also gets nervous in font of an audience and it would really help her if HE would hold her hand when they walked in. That did the trick! Once he got over his nerves he had a wonderful program and got to accept his dipolma. Thank you Stepping Stones for all you have done to help our little Nathan grow and learn. Look out Kindergarten...Here comes Nathan!

What a Girl won't do for the 1st slice of Pizza!

So this is how she REALLY feels between shots!
Pretty little Ballerina!

I'm pretty proud of the hair. It's not easy to fake a bun with Britt's current hair style. All those hours of styling my Barbie head finally paid off!

This year picture day fell on a Tuesday night about 5:00 pm. So to make my life more simple I ordered pizza from the place 2 doors down from the dance studio. As soon as we got home from dance pictures Britt was dying to dive into the pizza but I REALLY wanted some cute pictures since I had done all this work getting her ready. So we made a deal. If she looked and smiled AT the camera, after 5 pictures I would let her change and she could have the 1st piece of pizza. If you know Britt at all, she has wandering eyes when it comes to pictures but man the PIZZA DEAL had her focused! I was sneaky and took a few extra pictures but it was SO much easier than pictures in the past. So note to self...recital night, have a few slices of pizza as bait!

I love watching Brittanie take dance. I was devastated when she quit in the fall for gymnastics but was thrilled (and a little guilty for enticing her to sign-up again) when she decided to come back. As we were getting her ready for pictures she flew off the chair when she saw me coming at her with (Dun-Dun-DUN) Mascara! She ran from me and told me that is why she quit dance. After some smooth talking I was able to get her back and finish her eyes. I guess what I am saying is that all her therapy needs in the future will stem from MY need to have her take dance!

Move over Johnny Damon...

...because the hottest baseball player in the league is now Nathan Snelders!!! Get in line ladies, he is only 5 years old!
Nathans smallest...but loudest fan!

Look at the wind up!

He can hit, run, and field the ball after 1 practice. This kid is AMAZING!

Nice hit!!

This is Scott's favorite picture of the night! Look at the power leg move!


Nathan started t-ball last Tuesday night and he was SO excited. He followed me around all day and was anxious to go to his first practice. After asking me four times if it was time to leave to go to practice he stopped and looked at me and said, "What IS practice?" This made me chuckle! We went to a get pictures on Saturday and then stayed and played some games the the Baseball extravaganza they set up to help the program earn a little money. I was pretty proud of myself because I took all 3 kids by myself and we were on time and then played games for an hour before Zach was done.

Then Monday night was the big night! It was game time and Nate was still unsure of what the difference was between a game and practice. He quickly found out that playing the game was ALOT more fun. We were very proud of him because he was aggressive and went after the ball everytime it even got close to him. There was a few times the boys dog-piled trying to get the ball--and not one kid was worried about the runner. It was so fun. Much less stressfull than soccer! We decided we like being t-ball parents!

Our little man is growing up!

Trying new foods is always a treat!
Zach has mastered sitting up but still tips over occasionally.

Zach just turned 8 months old and we thought this would be the perfect time to brag about all that he has accomplished so far. We have introduced solid foods over the past 2 months and he has some favorites and some...not so favorites. I would say some of his favorites are squash, applesauce, bananas, and oatmeal. Zach doesn't like the prune/apple combo we tried this week. I have been trying for 3 days to get him to finish off 1 container and it's a NO-GO. However, no matter what anyone is eating, Zach notices and wants to taste everything!! (He's like his Mom and doesn't want anyone to eat alone!)

Zach is growing like a weed now with all his new found favorite foods and now weighs almost 16 lbs. He loves his big brother. Nathan is probably the one that gets the most laughs out of Zach when he is being silly. Brittanie treats Zach like her own real life cabbage patch doll and has been caught more than once packing him around when she's not suppose to. It seems like just yesterday we were debating over baby names and now little "Nacho" is here. What JOY this little man has brought to our home!

Brittanies got TALENT!

This is for you Grandma! Watch it over and over!

Britt is trying out for her school talent show next week. When we told Grandma she wanted a little audition tape so here it is. We did several takes but this one was extra funny thanks to Nate. We all laughed so hard watching it that this was the one we had to post.

We hope you all enjoy. (Mom, Can you believe that I told you I would post and then I did all in the same day! I think I'm getting a handle on my life--maybe.)

First Family Ski Trip

We took our first family ski trip on Saturday. Having great success with the first trip Dad took with each of the kids, we thought it was time to get all of us up there together. We went up with Kevan & Judy's family to Bogus Basin for a little night sking fun. By the end of the night, we were so thrilled out how far both Brittanie and Nathan had come. They both could ski down the "coach" hill on their own and really started to love going fast.

Both kids are really excited about skiing and can't wait to be able to go again. We hope to get up there a time or two before all the snow melts this Spring.

Nate's B-day Celebration

" Look how fast I am dude!"
The kiddie pool and playground area

Our b-day BOY!!

The kids love riding the big floating snake.

The Gang is ready to hit the pool!

Nate and his magic wand.
The Snelders family in Washington

Finally--Mom got in the pool!

Great Wolf Lodge Trip:

It has become tradition in our family to do a trip when our kids turn 5. When Britt turned 5 we went to Disneyland. So we have been planning to go again when Nate turned 5 but as his birthday approached he didn't seem too excited to go. So we started thinking of other options and when we showed Nate the pictures on his cousins blog of their trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Washington it didn't take him long to decide. This little boy LOVES swimming and so this was the perfect trip for him. We left early Friday morning and arrived at the hotel at 4:00p.m. We were lucky enough to meet Craig, Julie, and their boys and share a 2 room suite! (Thanks Craig for getting us a deal!) So after a quick dinner the kids couldn't find their swimming suits fast enough! So we got in a couple of hours of swimming before the kids were done and wanted to go to story time in the hotel lobby. After story time, Nate and his cousins used the magic wand we got at the "Magic Quest" store to wander around the hotel and make creatures come to life and open treasure chests. Harry Potter...eat your heart out! It was pretty cool!! After traveling and so much action Nate fell asleep almost before his head touched the pillow. Saturday morning we were back at the pool by 9:30 a.m. and swam until about 3:30 p.m. It was a blast. (Hopefully nobody that works at Great wolf will read this next part of my story) Nate was the only one of the kids that was too short to ride the big waterslides so towards the end of our 2nd day I slipped Britts bracelet off and put it on Nate and we took him down the big slides a few times. (Don't judge me--Nate missed qualifying by 1/2 inch). Can we just say...He LOVED the fast slides and it was totally worth the dishonesty. Britt almost made a scene when I asked her for her bracelet by saying "No Mommy, that's CHEATING!! And then again when I went to take Britt down after she had given her bracelet to Nate, the lifeguard questioned us about her missing bracelet and she looked at me in fear. Luckily she kept her lips sealed and after a quick measurement she was allowed to ride down...and go get a new bracelet. Wheww...that was close. OK, so I'm a bad Mom but if you saw the smile on Nate's face after his 1st time down ANYONE else would have done the same thing. Totally worth it! What a great time we had and a HUGE thank you to Craig & Julie for helping us make it happen!! I don't know if anyone will notice but we hardly ever go anywhere without Craig & Julie...and we are more than OK with that!

IT's a tie-dye Christmas

Inn Keeper Nate and "Wise Woman" Britt in the Navity Christmas Eve.
Britt wants to be just like her older Cousin Tyler and now she can look the part with matching hats from Grandma!

Our tie-dye family!

We made sure Zach wasn't left out and dyed one of his onesies!

"tis the season to be tie-dying???" Well it was if you were celebrating Christmas in Wayan. This year I was in charge of decorating some t-shirts that our Uncle brought out and I thought tie dying sounded like fun. It was really fun!! Little Britt fell in love with it and made 2 shirts for herself and helped make one for Zach and Nate. I think this will be one of my favorite christmases when I look back at all the pictures and see all of our family wearing their shirts on Christmas Eve! I wish I had gotten more pictures of our aunts, uncles and cousins wearing them because every shirt was unique! We had a wonderful holiday with our family in Wayan and on Christmas eve we drove to my sisters house in Utah and spent Christmas morning there. Since I didn't have church responsibilities to run home to I stayed for another 5 days while Scott came home and worked. It was SO fun to spend more time with my sister and brother-in-law and then a few days with my parents. I wish I could do that every year!! Thanks to everyone (my mom and Craig) for shuttleing me from city to city!! I had a blast. We wrapped up the holiday in Pocatello to celebrate New Years and Scott came back from Boise to pick us up. Now we are back to "normal" and have been spending our days running to and from gymnastics, ballet, work, mutual and our all important family Saturday Activities. I can't believe how fast life is going but it sure is a fun ride!

Nathan's 10 Seconds of Fame

We needed a little actor for our Toys for Tots campaign for Albertsons in Boise, and our Advertising Director asked if my son would like to be the tot. Nathan was pretty excited about the whole thing. He was great for the photo shoot in the store for the posters. He had a great smile and was willing to try about anything. When shooting the video for the advertisement, Nathan was a little more shy. I couldn'g get him to show the same big grin he had for the photo shoot and he was definately hesitant about giving the Marine a hug.

The ad is currently playing in Boise on ABC:

Here is the poster that is at our Boise Albertsons locations at the toy bin drop-off area:

Do you think he has a career?